


Trapped

by ewatsonia



Category: Televoid! (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Gen, due to me writing this before Safety Woman was out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-20 00:07:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17611682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ewatsonia/pseuds/ewatsonia
Summary: After a grueling episode of Televoid, Ian dwells on the unfair situation he's stuck in.





	Trapped

**Author's Note:**

> Finally getting around to crossposting my Televoid fics from tumblr, this is an older one. I wrote it pretty much right after A Message To No One came out.

If Ian had to describe how he felt at the moment in two words, those words would be  _“fucking miserable.”_  There weren’t really better words to sum up someone who was hunched over in a section of a mostly empty void hacking blood into his hand, really.

As much as the void had been hurting him by changing things, he hadn’t expected the blood. That’s what you get for forcefully coughing as much as he did he supposed. He just hadn’t expected the void to actually cause him physical harm. It’d done a grand job of fucking him up mentally and scarring him for life but he figured anything along those lines would make viewers see right through the whole “happy, willing, and complacent host” facade he had going on.

Though it turned out the viewers might’ve seen through that a long time ago, from what that email he received tonight said. He wished he’d realized the pain he got in his chest when he read the emails was the void changing them a while ago.

He a little worried about the ones that sent those kinds of emails now.

Regardless, he was currently dealing with the aftermath of figuring out how to get around the void changing shit. It hadn’t been a fan of him finding a loophole, learning the truth or someone directly telling him not to read emails out loud lest they find out easier. Go figure.

Ian held his phlegm and blood covered palm to his eyes and grimaced. Gross. He didn’t really have anything to wipe in on besides his clothes(which, hell no, he wasn’t dirtying the few things he could truly call his own). 

The painful pins and needles in his chest had only barely subsided at this point but he knew coughing more wouldn’t do him much good. Christ he just wanted it to stop…

His life in the void, in a nutshell. Wanting things the void would never deliver on and sometimes actively prevent.

Wanted to watch more than one show while he actually had the audience around? Yeah no screw that. We’re gonna cut you off instead. And the one time we don't, we’re gonna show you a nice little film that’ll creep you out beyond belief and give you identity issues.

(Those copies of Ian still haunted him and the memory of them sent chills down his spine even months later.)

Wanted something to keep you happy, occupied, and less lonely between the episodes? Okay, we’ll print out some emails from viewers for you. But only when it’s convenient to us to keep you in a good mood. Otherwise, you get jack shit.

Ian was initially baffled by the lack of emails between episodes three and four if he was perfectly honest. The happier he was, well, the more complacent he was admittedly.  _That_ had felt like the void was just out to make him miserable. After the email he was able to read unchanged this past episode though…he was starting to understand. Maybe the void could only change things during the episode. It realized people were trying to warn him, tell him they knew that things weren’t quite right and halted contact until they could alter things. That made sense to him now, as much as he hated it.

He groaned, and after thinking he was done with the coughing for now, he had one more fit.  He looked at his hand one more time, scrunched up his face and ended up wiping what was on it on the “floor” of the void.  Served it right for torturing him, Ian wasn’t wiping that on his clothes or furniture.

The tiny sliver of defiance almost made him smirk.

With that over with for now, Ian went back to the main part of his little alcove in the void and flopped into his chair.  He closed his eyes. He hadn’t been sleeping much prior to the episode today. He was pretty sure that showed, he could see his dark eyes through the reflection in the TV after all. Ian wondered what the viewers would make of that.

Not the he’d find out, he was sure. At this point he wouldn’t be surprised if the void stopped sending him emails all together if most of them were of the concerned variety. Man the least they could do is let him see a little fan art…

He let out a long suffering sigh. No use complaining. That would achieve nothing. If anything, it’d probably make the void extend the period between episodes to punish him.

 _Fuck_  the void.

Unfortunately, it was the only place he had. The only place he knew. If Ian  _had_ known a life before being trapped here, he couldn’t remember it. He didn’t want to be here, he wanted to be somewhere else but…he didn’t know where somewhere else  _was_ anymore.(If he ever did…)Yet he longed to be out of here. He longed to return to a home he wasn’t even sure was real.

Ian recalled something of it, episode one he’d made a comment about his parents being happy he was doing anything besides watching TV. That had felt genuine, he vaguely recalled a family. And if those parents were even real, Ian agreed with them. He’d make them proud and never watch TV for another second of his life if it meant freedom from the void.

Ian knew deep down, freedom would never come though. He had a feeling that even if he fucked up beyond repair on  _Televoid_ , the void would never free him. It was either be a good host, or suffer the consequences like he had this time.

He looked mournfully at the camera. He’d been too hostile this past episode, he realized. He didn’t know what kept the viewers coming back but…he hoped that didn’t affect things too much. Ian hated being here, this was true. But he’d taken it out, been too bitter, too angry last episode. He worried that ruined the sympathy some viewers had for him.

Ian didn’t like being here. But he did like hate the company he had when he hosted a new episode. That always felt good. Satisfying. Made him feel less alone. Sure sometimes, especially within the last few episodes, he questioned if they were sadists, the ones watching him. Excited to see him go through hell. But it was still company…

Bitterness, rage, and longing to be elsewhere aside, Ian hoped he hadn’t ruined the only companionship he had left. He hated the void. He hated Televoid. But he didn’t hate his audience.

At least not yet.


End file.
